Proposal for an MA and Ph.D. programme in cultural studies at UC Davis

Abstract

The following proposal for an MA and Ph.D. programme at the University of California, Davis, is the culmination of four years of meetings and other organizing activities focused on the formal institutionalization of cultural studies at UC Davis. Groundwork for the proposed cultural studies programme began in a series of discussions held by an interdisciplinary group of faculty about how to create the opportunity for structured graduate teaching, advising and research in cultural studies at UC Davis. The Dean of Graduate Studies at that time encouraged this group to submit a pre‐proposal for an MA and Ph.D. in cultural studies. Faculty involved in the original discussions subsequently drew up a pre‐proposal and held further informal meetings. E‐mail lists were created and information was disseminated. Eventually, an executive committee, whose charge it was to draw up a formal proposal, was formed. The following proposal grew out of the executive committee's early efforts. Cultural studies at UC Davis cuts across myriad units, programmes, clusters and centres in two colleges in the humanities, social sciences, and agricultural environmental studies and involves a unique collectivity of faculty and students interested in class, gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality, transnationalism, postcolonialism and related areas of enquiry. The UC Davis proposal, therefore, forges many connections across a wide variety of cultural studies interests.